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New York Police Slowdown Puts Bratton on the Spot

Commissioner Caught Between Police Unions and the Mayor Who They Say Doesn’t Have Their Back

By

Rebecca Davis O’Brien

Updated Jan. 15, 2015 3:01 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—Police Commissioner William Bratton has spent the better part of two decades straddling two worlds—politics and police.

Now the 67-year-old Mr. Bratton, who made his name transforming troubled police departments, faces perhaps his greatest management challenge: reasserting authority over a police force that dramatically slowed some of its law-enforcement efforts, while remaining loyal to his boss, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who some officers contend hasn’t done enough to back them.